Turner Classic Movies (TCM) pays tribute the oldest film genre, and perhaps most classically American, with Shane Plus A Hundred More Great Westerns, a month-long programming special featuring more than 100 of the greatest Western movies ever made. Hosted by acclaimed actor and Academy Award® winning songwriter Keith Carradine, programming begins July 5th and airs from sun-up to sundown every Tuesday and Wednesday in July.
Shane Plus A Hundred More Great Westerns will feature themed programming including:
- The Early Years (July 5) – in addition to The Great Train Robbery (1903), these pioneer Westerns include The Squaw Man (1914), the first producing-directing effort by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille
- John Wayne/John Ford (July 5) – takes a look at the partnership of the quintessential Western star and director which encompassed 14 films ranging from Stagecoach (1939), the pairs first collaboration, to The Searchers (1956), which many consider the team’s greatest masterpiece
- Directed by Sam Peckinpah (July 6) – provides examples of the iconic director’s work including Ride the High Country (1962) and The Wild Bunch (1969), which was noted for taking the Western into unprecedented levels of violence
- Epic Westerns (July 12) – includes the Kirk Douglas vehicle The Big Sky (1952) and MGM’s How the West Was Won (1962), a multi-part, star-heavy epic originally filmed in Cinerama
- Singing Cowboys (July 13) – a staple of the 1930s and ‘40s in a series of modest and innocently entertaining Westerns, many of them starring Gene Autry or Roy Rogers
- Spaghetti Westerns/Clint Eastwood (July 19) – includes two TCM premieres – A Bullet for Sandoval (1970) and Red Sun (1971) – and overlaps with the “Starring Clint Eastwood” theme, which includes Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western classics A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
- Western Comedies (July 26) – ranging from Go West (1925), starring Buster Keaton, to Hearts of the West, starring Jeff Bridges, as a writer who becomes a star of B Westerns
- Great Barroom Brawls (July 26) – highlighting the legendary and elusive Shane (1953), directed by George Stevens and starring Alan Ladd
- True Stories? (July 27) – includes far-fetched accounts of Western legends such as Billy the Kid (1941) and Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
To view a trailer Shane Plus A Hundred More Great Westerns, please click here. For a full schedule, please visit tcm.com/westerns
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